Earth ChangesS


Fish

Massive Fish Die Off In The Whangamarino Wetlands of New Zealand

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© UnknownWhangamarino wetland
The deaths of thousands of fish over the past week in the Whangamarino wetland have been caused by very low levels of dissolved oxygen in the water, The Department of Conservation [DOC] says.

Department spokesperson Kevin Hutchinson said numerous reports had come in from concerned residents and wetland users about the deaths, numbering possibly in the hundreds of thousands. While most are pests such as koi carp and catfish, native species mullet, bullies and eels have also been found dead.

"The drought at the end of 2010 exposed large areas of the wetland and rapid plant growth occurred in areas usually under water. High rainfall in January compounded by the baked dry ground in the catchment meant water rapidly ran off into the wetland and water levels remained consistently high for about three consecutive weeks."

Kevin Hutchinson says the decomposing plant matter started a bacterial process which depletes oxygen in the water. The warm humid weather experienced over summer has kept water temperatures and thus enhancing bacterial growth. Tests conducted with an oxygen meter by DOC rangers yesterday confirmed the very low levels of oxygen present in the water.

Question

Something Is Rotten Across States: US Officials Search For Source Of Strange Odor

Reports Received In Prince George's, Frederick, Montgomery Counties.

Maryland and West Virginia officials said they've had no luck finding the source of a mysterious odor reported in both states.

MEMA director Richard Muth told WBAL-AM on Thursday that the number of reports about the smell had decreased but that the investigation continues.

West Virginia's state director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said Maryland authorities alerted his office about a possible gas leak Wednesday.

Jimmy Gianato said people in Maryland were calling to report they'd smelled mercaptan. That's the substance added to natural gas to make it smell like rotten eggs.

Gianato said the state Department of Environmental Protection checked with gas facilities and pipelines on the West Virginia side, but no one reported any leaks.

Magic Wand

Best of the Web: The Shiny Harbingers of Change, More Frequent and Brighter: Mysterious Noctilucent Clouds As Seen from Space

Mysterious "night shining" or noctilucent clouds are beautiful to behold, and are usually seen during the summertime, appearing at sunset. They are thin, wavy ice clouds that form at very high altitudes and reflect sunlight long after the Sun has dropped below the horizon. Scientists don't know exactly why they form, but continue to observe them - both from Earth and from space. These images were taken by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA's Aura satellite.

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© NASPolar mesospheric clouds (PMCs) observed by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on the Aura satellite. Maps by Robert Simmon
Also called polar mesospheric clouds, they are puzzling scientists with their recent dramatic changes. They used to be considered rare, but now the clouds are growing brighter, are seen more frequently, are visible at lower and lower latitudes than ever before, and - as these satellite image reveal - they are now even appearing during the day.

Comment: The article mentions Matthew DeLand's measurements of a long-term trend towards more and brighter noctilucent clouds linking to rising greenhouse gases. And we would like to clarify, just in case there is anyone left who's not been paying attention, that it has nothing to do with Global Warming.

What we suspect has really been happening, based on our research thus far, is that the upper atmosphere is cooling because it is being loaded with comet dust, which shows up in the form of noctilucent clouds and other upper atmospheric formations. The comet dust is electrically charged which is causing the earth's rotation to slow marginally. The slowing of the rotation is reducing the magnetic field, opening earth to more dangerous cosmic radiation and stimulating more volcanism. The volcanism under the sea is heating the sea water which is heating the lower atmosphere and loading it with moisture. The moisture hits the cooler upper atmosphere and contributes to a deadly mix that inevitably leads to an Ice Age, preceded for a short period by a rapid increase of greenhouse gases and "hot pockets" in the lower atmosphere, heavy rains, hail, snow, and floods.

Expect this trend to continue but don't believe in "man-made Global Warming". Whatever warming there has been, it's really a prelude to the way Ice Ages begin. Let's hope that there aren't any catastrophically large chunks in that stream of comet dust cycling through our solar system.


Control Panel

Oklahoma sees record cold: -31

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© Kevin Pieper/AP Snow-covered cows stand in a field in Baxter County, Ark., on Wednesday.
An icy blast tugged temperatures well below zero in a large swath of the South on Thursday, setting records for cold by late morning.

Forecasters had predicted lows of minus 11 degrees in northwest Arkansas and minus 10 degrees in parts of Oklahoma. But temperatures instead dipped to minus 18 in Fayetteville and to minus 28 in Bartlesville, Okla.

Nowata, Okla., recorded 31 degrees below zero - setting a new record low for the state. The previous lowest temperature in Oklahoma history was 27 below in 1930 and 1905, said Gary McManus, associate state climatologist with the Oklahoma Climatological Survey.

"We just had a very cold arctic air mass and a heavy snow pack and that allowed the temperatures to plummet when the wind died down," said McManus. "We got much colder temperatures than anyone thought would occur."

Igloo

Snow in Southern U.S.

Snow Covered Southern US
© Earth Observatory, NASANASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center.
The icy fingers of winter 2010-11 reached down into the south central U.S. for the second time in a week, breaking many local records for snowfall in a month that is still only 10 days old.

Snowfall totals topped 20 inches (50 centimeters) in parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Arkansas, just one week after a Groundhog Day storm coated the region with several inches. Meanwhile, temperatures dropped into the single digits in the American Plains and in Colorado. The storms moved east to dump more snow, ice, and rain in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and the Carolinas.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite captured this clear view of the nation's mid-section at 1:25 Central Standard Time on February 10, 2011. Nearly all of the white in this image is snow and ice, except for a bit of clouds in the lower right (southeast) corner. In the larger image file, the outlines of the Ouachita and Ozark mountain ranges darken the snowy landscape, while river valleys such as the Mississippi appear brighter due to fewer trees. Gray-white areas are often developed, urban landscapes that have been coated by snow; some, however, are just rural areas that received less snow.

Hourglass

Huge volcano under Yellowstone Park rising

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© National Park ServiceHydrothermal fluids, just like the ones shooting from Old Faithful, could be pushing up the Yellowstone supervolcano.
It's building quickly, but that doesn't mean doomsday eruption is imminent.

The huge volcano under Yellowstone National Park has been rising at an unprecedented rate during the past several years, according to a new study.

In the ancient past, the Yellowstone volcano produced some of the biggest-known continental eruptions, but the recent rising doesn't mean another doomsday eruption is looming, scientists say.

The recent rising is unprecedented for Yellowstone's caldera - the cauldron-shaped part of the volcano - but it's not uncommon for other volcanoes around the world. The new study has simply revealed a more active caldera at Yellowstone than scientists realized.

Binoculars

Volcano alert on Iceland

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© ReutersA column of steam and ash rises out of an erupting volcano near Eyjafjallajokull.
Another volcano could be about to erupt on Iceland, threatening to spew out a blanket of dust that would dwarf last year's eruption and ground hundreds more passenger flights.

Geologists say there is a high risk of the island's second-largest volcano Bárdarbunga erupting after an increase in the number of earthquakes around it.

Pall Einarsson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, says the increased activity provides "good reason to worry". The sustained tremors to the north-east of the remote volcano range are the strongest recorded in recent times and there was "no doubt' the lava was rising.

Alarm Clock

New volcano images by USGS, earthquakes "a concern"

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© USGS
A new spattering vent has formed on the south side of the Thanksgiving Eve Breakout shield, and the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory caught a glimpse of the activity just before daybreak on February 4.

The active Pu'u O'o crater floor is slowly filling the east side of the vent with lava.

Meanwhile, at Kilauea's summit, the circulating lava lake in the collapse pit deep within the floor of Halema'uma'u Crater has been visible via Webcam throughout the past week. Volcanic gas emissions remain elevated, resulting in high concentrations of sulfur dioxide downwind.

Bizarro Earth

Celebes Sea - Earthquake Magnitude 6.7

Celebes 2 Sea Quake_100211
© USGSEarthquake Location
Date-Time
Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 14:41:57 UTC

Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 10:41:57 PM at epicenter

Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones

Location
3.966°N, 123.125°E

Depth
512.2 km (318.3 miles)

Region
CELEBES SEA

Distances
330 km (205 miles) SW of General Santos, Mindanao, Philippines

330 km (205 miles) SE of Jolo, Sulu Archipelago, Philippines

1200 km (740 miles) SSE of MANILA, Philippines

2130 km (1320 miles) ENE of JAKARTA, Java, Indonesia

Cloud Lightning

US: Flood warning issued for Bay, Gulf and Calhoun counties, Florida

Heavy rains over the last week have made conditions conducive to flooding along the Apalachicola River and in Gulf and Calhoun counties and eastern Bay County, according to the National Weather Service in Tallahassee.

The warning, issued at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, states flood stage begins at 15 feet, height of the bank at the marina at the mouth of the Apalachicola River. Wednesday evening water level reached 14.2 feet.